Move over Hood, Glad, Lever 2000,Tropicana, Green Mountain Roasters and Helmann's, there's a new posse in town, and they're gunning for you. Over at the grotto supermercado, shopping for life's necessities, I am confronted with a pleasing connundrum: choosing products from among a collection of unfamiliar brands. Having been exposed to little local advertising, having received no coupons, circulars nor word-of-mouth advice from friends or mothers, my brand choices must be made according to facts and impressions presented at the point of sale. Price, packages, competitive set and je ne sais quois inform my decisions.
In most categories, even at the ever-understocked grotto, there are usually two or three brands to choose from. Some are familiar, Barilla, Dove, Ever-ready, but others are entirely new. What recommends them? Why do I choose them over the others on offer? In a probably fool's errand of self-analysis, I have come to these conclusions.
First, I seldom select either the cheapest or the most expensive brand on offer. I usually opt for the medium price. Next, in packaging, I choose what seems to be "solid, and established." Finally, I always opt for a brand that's not conspicuously American.
In milk, for example, in addition to really liking the look and even sound of "Mukki," I am attracted to the solid shape and feel of the clean, white recyclable plastic cartons with the bright, easy to read labels. I like the primary colors, and the range of sizes and sorts of milk formulas on offer. In soap, despite an old fashioned and sort of homely package, I was seduced by the easy to understand product benefit: "Idratante," which I (of the snake-like skin) took to mean, "hydrating." In mayonnaise, (a girl's gotta have tunafish salad, even in Firenze,) I like the idea of a right-sized small package served up in an easy to store tube. (Good idea, Helmann's. Get on it, will you?)
In broad strokes, Italian packaging is certainly different than American. The design aesthetic is, interestingly less "contemporary" than we might seek: typeography is more old fasioned for the most part and designs seem more likely to err on the side of "heritage" than stunning newness. Italian packages are cluttered and "workman-like" rather than stunningly original or "clean" as we might prefer. Rather than jump off the shelf into your enthusiastic grasp, Italian packs sit patiently waiting to be evaluated. EU packaging --particularly that for foodstuffs or pharmaceuticals is often encumbered with many requirements: there's often a lot more information to be communicated on pack then we (yet) cope with here in the US.
Overall, most everything packaged is much smaller: from lightbulbs to eggs which are sold, at most, in groups of six. Further, many of the things we're used to buying in bulk at the supermarket are sold--unbranded-- in specialty stores: fruit, vegetables, meats and bread, and while it's possible to acquire the Italian equivalent of Wonderbread and Oscar Meyer, one wouldn't, (unless one were a lonely, clueless bachelor or bachelorette.)
Staples of life from toilet tissue and laundry detergent to toothpaste and shower cleaner are all loaded with promise of functional benefits from softness and aroma to environmental sensitivity and value pricing. From the several stores I've visited, there are far fewer choices for consumers to make in packaged goods due to limited shelf space and what appears to be a less robust supermarket-based selling channel.
To be honest, and it's probably a lot about nostalgia or naivete on my part, I'd far sooner shop a little every day for small things at small stores with an owner who advises me what's good than push even a mini-cart through the aisles of a bigger, more soul-less store where packages attempt to do the selling.
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